Meet Ella. She’s a sophomore at Alpha High, and a rising founder in the beauty industry. “I’m building Club Studios,” she says, “A skincare line for sporty girls.” This isn’t an arbitrary decision. At just sixteen, Ella has already put in years of research. What she found is this: aesthetic skincare brands aren’t functional, and functional skincare brands aren’t aesthetic. And this is actually really important.
“Beauty is a lifestyle, not a product,” Ella says. “There are sporty, rich girls who want products that match their lifestyle. And the girls who aspire to that lifestyle want products that make them feel like that girl.”
But Club Studios is more than genius marketing. Ella is building a brand to solve a universal problem that athletic women everywhere experience.
“Growing up, I was a dancer. If I wanted my makeup to stay on, I had to cake it on my face. It’s terrible for your skin, especially when you sweat. Girls just want to look cute going to the gym or playing their sport, but it’s so bad for your skin. I want to fix that.”
Ella’s vision is for the active girl who wears tinted SPF to tennis, documents her Pilates routine on TikTok, and lives for the “sporty chic” aesthetic. Ella is gearing up to launch three products:
-
“City Grip” — an acne-safe primer to prep the skin for sports. It’s complete with antioxidants that protect against nasties like sweat and free radicals (i.e. perfect for the Pilates girl on her morning walk through polluted city air).
-
“Court Condition” — a luxurious moisturizer-SPF that girls can live in throughout the summer (i.e. geared towards the fun-in-the-sun types who want high-quality results with minimal effort).
-
“Club Face” — a caffeine and peptide under-eye serum paired with reusable silicone eye masks (i.e. the perfect duo for rest, recovery, and the appearance of nine hours of sleep).
The cool thing is, Ella doesn’t just talk the talk. She has a real vision, real standards, and a real commitment to her life as an entrepreneur.
“I’m committed to using ingredients that actually work. Beta glucan, vitamin C, pomegranate seed extract, tamarind seed extract, biosaccharide gum, ectoin — I’m not labeling this as “sporty girl’s skincare” and only using hyaluronic acid and niacinamide. The products are full of actives and botanicals you can’t find in just any bottle of skincare.”
Okay, enough skincare talk. Let’s talk business.
Most teens are just trying to get a decent grade in business class, right? Not Ella. She’s already passed product development, audience building, and brand strategy in the real world. Her Instagram just passed 8,000 followers. Not from viral dances or clickbait content, but from documenting the founder journey and inviting her audience into the product creation process. Think Glossier meets Gymshark, but built in real time by a Gen Z girl who used to make her own Glossier stickers as a kid and now works with a full-fledged cosmetic chemist on ingredient formulations.
“I’ve known that I have been creative like this since I was six. When I was thirteen, I took every single photo from every Glossier campaign ever, turned it into a sticker on Canva, printed it out, cut it, and taped it to my wall. It’s all still there.”
She’s always been a curator of vibes: mood boards, Canva designs, Pinterest collections. But now she’s a creator of products. And that distinction matters.
“The way I see it, there are three different types of people on the internet,” Ella explains. She ticks them off on her fingers: “Influencers, curators, and creators. “Influencers influence people’s product decisions. Curators take others’ ideas and sell the vibe. Creators make their own products and brands. I think influencers are dying off. Creators are taking over. That’s what I want to be.”
Even before enrolling in Alpha, Ella knew she wanted to build skincare brands. Although Club Studios was still an abstract idea, she began to create content and build an audience. But public school didn’t make it easy.
At school, Ella secretly posted content under her desk after finishing tests. Teachers dismissed her ambitions, told her she could pursue her “little business” later. Classmates laughed at her ideas, writing her off as “a try-hard.” But she knew what she wanted. Public school just couldn’t help her get there.
But Alpha could.
When she came to Alpha, her lifelong passion (skincare meets creative direction) became her AlphaX project — the Olympic-level project all Alpha high schoolers build for their four years at Alpha High.
“I want to get to $2 million in revenue as a senior at Alpha,” she says. “So I can work with VCs while I’m still here. And at Alpha, when you say you want to do something ambitious, people don’t laugh at you. They just say, ‘Okay, how can we make it happen?’”
At Alpha, Ella gets the two things that matter most to ambitious teens: time and support. With just two hours of academic work a day (guided by AI tutors), she has the rest of the day to build her business. And her most precious resource? Working with Alpha guides, who function like teachers, therapists, and startup advisors all wrapped into one.
“I’ve probably cried in front of every single guide. They’ve been through every up and down with me. They’re not just supporting me academically. They’re giving me real-world tools and connections.”
She meets with her cosmetic chemist weekly, debriefs with Guides almost daily, and regularly works on campaign development, content strategy, and pitch materials — all while crushing academics. It sounds insane. (It kind of is!) But it goes to show how a system built the right way can catapult kids into unimaginable success. And I don’t mean the success of Ella’s skincare company. The reality is, like any startup, it could flop. And that’s okay. Because the tools she’s building are the real success. Most adults will never have the resources and support Ella has right now. They will never take the risk to build something from scratch; to create, fail, iterate, to make something they’ve always dreamed of making. And here Ella is, a teenager, doing all of this and then some. It’s inspiring. Beyond inspiring.
Not every kid is going to align with their passions so deeply at such a young age. But some do — just like Ella. It’s time we take that seriously, that we nurture that part of them. Sometimes, it’s easy to think, “They’re just kids! They don’t know what they want!” But from what I’ve seen, over and over again, is that kids are a thousand times more capable than we give them credit for. They don’t need another adult telling them they can’t do something. They don’t need another classmate making fun of their dreams. They need us to lean in, listen, ask questions, and say: “That sounds great. How can we make it happen?”
Ella’s story isn’t just about a skincare line or a talented teenager. Looking back at her transition from public school to Alpha, she had a realization:
“Traditional school steals our time. The idea that life doesn’t start until after college is a lie.”
And she’s right. Your kids don’t have to wait to pursue a dream, start a business, or begin building those life skills. They can start right now.
If you want this for your kids, Alpha might just be the place for them.
